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Damascus, Syria – Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, appointed an Iranian military leader as his deputy to lead the Revolutionary Guard forces in the southern areas of Syria against the Syrian armed opposition, Iranian sources reported on Saturday.

Gen. Soleimani is no longer the direct military commander of the Iranian forces in Syria’s south, he appointed an Iranian military leader as his deputy on those forces, while Soleimani is still the general supervisor of the Iranian forces and militias in the Syrian territory, according to the Italian agency AKI.

“The newly appointed Iranian military commander has absolute authority over all the pro-Assad military factions in southern Syria, including the Syrian regime’s army, the National Defense Army militia, the Lebanese militia of Hezbollah, and the Iraqi Shiite militias stationed in those areas,” AKI reported.

The recent fighting in the so-called “Triangle of Death” –the region linking the northwestern countryside of Daraa with the northeastern countryside of Quneitra and western countryside of Damascus– led to the death of several officers of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard forces, as well as soldiers from different nationalities, the most notably was Soleimani’s deputy himself, a prominent commander of the Afghan militia fighters, according to the armed opposition forces in southern Syria.

Noteworthy, Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, had called earlier in 2015 upon Iranian youth groups to head to Syria in order to “help peers in their war against terrorism”.